A patient wielding a knife killed two people and injured another at a Tokyo hospital on Monday, Japanese media reports said.

Mainichi Shimbun daily said the patient, a male in his 60s, stabbed two other men in his hospital room and a female nurse with a kitchen knife before being arrested. The two men later died, the paper said on its online edition.

Public broadcaster NHK said the suspect had been hospitalised at the downtown Tokyo hospital for a liver ailment.

Concerns about crime in what was once one of the world's safest countries have been on the rise, and vicious killings often are the top item on TV news programmes.

Source: Agencies